Kinda Funny Gamescast: Video Game Podcast - Greg Miller Played Pokmemon Legends: Z-A - Kinda Funny Gamescast

Episode Date: August 28, 2025

Go to Kindafunny.com/XREAL, Amazon, or Best Buy to grab yours now!Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FDPGHVCB?maas=maas_adg_94D809319DE2358E49DA54BC8B880A40_afap_abs&ref_=aa_maas&tag=maas Best Buy: https://www.bestbuy.com/product/xreal-one-pro-ar-glasses-w-x1-chip-171-fhd-120hz-display-w-sound-by-bose-for-iphone16-15-steam-rog-mac-pc-android-ios-57-66mm-ipd/CZTVG22GYF Thank you for the support! Run of Show - - Start - Housekeeping - Greg’s Preview of Pokemon Legends Z-A - Greg’s Team in Pokemon Violet - Mega Evolution Battle in Z-A - Ads - Pokemon Worlds Championships - Pokemon Taking Over Greg’s Life - Pokemon Scarlet & Violet DLC Spoilers - Greg’s First Pokemon Review - SuperChats Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What's up and welcome to the Kind of Funny Games cast for Thursday, August 28th, 2025. Of course I am your host, Tim Getty's. I'm joined today by Blessing Adioia Jr. Good day, Tim. And Greg Miller. Hello, Tim. How are you?

Bless. I'm tired. You tired? Yeah, I told the story on KG, but I woke up to go to the gym this morning. Gym closed for renovations. And so I came home. I got the code to Los Sol's side. So I just streamed an hour of that instead.

Yeah. Yeah. And so I didn't get my morning movement like I usually do, but I'm here. Jakes. Sure. No, I'm not going to do. Yeah, this wasn't today,

but I was very tired yesterday for a story that I'm going to be honest with you guys. I'm embarrassed to tell you, but I'm going to because that's what we do here. We're open, transparent about everything. I watched Mark Merrin's stand-up special on HBO.

Utterly fantastic. Required viewing. So goddamn good. Have you seen him going around doing his little... I've seen the clips of the podcast or just destroying motherfuckers. It's been great. But the special is like,

oh, it's the art. behind the shit talk. It's fantastic stuff. But it's really, really, really real to the point that I had nightmares. Oh, my God. A stand-up special gave me nightmares. Oh, my God. You don't hear that a lot in comedy. You really don't. Unless you're a comedian. But that's just where we're at

we're at in the world. You know what I mean? Sure. Just some of the things he said, I'm like, and I don't want to spoil you. But it's like, I just watch it. Watch it. See what happens. I got enough to be scared about. It's a scary world out there. How are you doing, Greg? I'm great, Tim. How are you? Yeah. You know, I've been better in a pre-nightmare world from stand-up comedy. You'll get over it, though.

I will. What was the nightmare? Do you want to get? I mean, just like, you know, just the end of the world? Yeah. Yeah. Just kind of like that. Hey, like at a certain point, like, if the end of the world actually comes, what are we

going to do? Yeah. I'm fucked. I'm so fucked. My Pomeranians are fucked. Yeah. You know what I mean? Honestly, yeah.

Like, just like, they don't have survival instincts. I'm saying, just like, like, if shit hits the fan. Where am I going? Who am I going to? I mean, we're back. We're back to the zombie movie. Do you want to survive in that world? I mean, that's where I'm at.

You want to survive? They're not going to be any more video games. We're sitting around a little fucking campfire, roasted squirrels. I'm good. I kind of had a nightmare last night, but it was like less scary and more stressful. It was a, I had a dream that one of my friends, they were auditioning for a role in a play. That was like about Pinocchio. About Pinocchio.

Yeah, it was like a Pinocchio. Or maybe. Maybe. Yeah, about Pinocchio's lies. Yeah, that was the name of the play, actually, Pinocchio's lies. And they were offered, they were offered a role that was a role that was a, maybe, the role that they auditioned for, but they were going to pay them $80,000 on the dot. Like right now, we're like, we're going to give you $80K right here.

And they're like, no, I want the other role. And for some reason, me as their friend, I was also getting the money. It's always me looking at them being like, no, you got to do it. You can't say no to this. We need the money. We need the money. Everybody, because this is the kind of funny games cast each and every weekday. We get together to talk about the biggest reviews, previews, and topics of video games live on YouTube, Twitch,

and podcast services around the globe. If you love what we do, and I really hope that you do, you're going to want to get the kind of funny membership. It gets you the show's ad-free, and you get a daily exclusive show. Today, the Gregway is what? It's me talking about superhero video games.

Cool. Where the fuck are they? Where are they? They're getting canceled left and right. It was nuts. Yesterday I was thinking about Wonder Woman, as I often do. And then I remember Black Panther also got canceled.

Wait. Did it come up? Because I also was thinking about Black Panther yesterday. I said this on KFG right before this. Yeah. But I was like sitting, I was like sitting yesterday. I was like, man, they canceled a black panther game. Do you know how well a black panther game would do?

Oh my God. A black panther game would sell phenomenal. Oh, we're so fucked. Mark Merritt's right. First chance to be part of this show, submit your thoughts and opinions as YouTube super chats as we go. Just like True authoritarian did saying birthday tax can't wait for the full ZA review from KF's only Pokemon fan soon.

Also, it's actually the 28th this week. Greg, how do you feel? I like how it's evolved into you being the only fan You know what I mean? The only true one. No one's talked about Pokemon until I got it. We definitely don't talk about it. We don't make enough Pokemon content.

That's true. We don't do the streams. We don't do the conversations. I'm here now, but we don't do the reactions. I dream all of those. None of those hasn't happened. Shit, not without Greg.

Little housekeeping for you. We're an 11 person business all about live talk shows. Games Daily was all about where the hell the lost souls aside reviews are. After Gamescast, after this. It was a reasonable conversation, yeah? Oh. I got real mad. Y'all got that blessed.

Hot. But I also, I think, chat, you let me know. I think I did a good job of keeping composed, not showing my anger. On the inside, I was fuming. It was one of those ones where one super chat, like, set me off. I couldn't focus for the rest of the show. Like, there was so many stumbles while reading, because I was just fucking mad at the one super chat. That was like, how can you tell me about this game that you only played an hour of?

I played an hour of the fucking game this morning. He's telling you what he did. They gave me the code this morning. God. This seems really for you to come in and give a scored review after an hour. I didn't score it. It's wild. I told you I played an hour.

It was too good. It wasn't too bad. It was both. Wait until you hear how much Pokemon Z-A-I-play. Totally more than an hour. We'll see. We'll see, everyone. Then after this, we have prey in review, returning to Predator and Review.

I can't wait to talk to the boys about this one. And then after that, the stream is a bussy or whatever the hell it's called. Abbasis. I don't even know what it actually is. Oh, busy. Yeah, I'm on my call it a bussy, so it's a bussy. And then if you're kind of funny member, of course, you get the Greg way. We were just talking about about superhero video games.

Then thank you to our Patreon producers, Carl Jacobs, Omega Buster, and Delaney, the Somme, Twining. Today we're brought to you by X-Real, but we'll tell you all about that later. For now, let's start with the topic of the show. Tots, Tats, Tats. Greg Miller played Pokemon Legends Z to A went to Pokemon World Championships in Anaheim and is finally ready to give his official review of Scarlet and Violet. I'm the world's biggest Pokemon fan and I finally made it.

I'm excited to finally be here. I've been bursting at the seams ready to talk about this. I have not talked to any of you about the game, about worlds, violent here and there, but you know what I mean? Like, it's an exciting situation to be in Tim. And I'm excited as the man who is now the number one Pokemon fan.

That's kind of funny. You're a man who's destined to review. Zah itself Legend Z to A Did you know that? Pokemon legend Z A I had heard Z2 when I was

I showed up to the demo and I'm standing there They said Pokemon legend Z to A I was like oh Oh okay Already a new scoop We knew when they explained What the gimmick of this game is

Yeah Of like doing the whole Yeah of course ranking up alphabet battle Which I was that recent Or was that like a while That was the Pokemon presents that we just got That we just got okay Yeah, because I don't think I didn't realize, yeah, until that where I was like, oh, you're going from Z to A.

Because in my mind, it was like an X and Y like thing. Well, it is that too. Yeah. Double entendre. Don't even ask me how. Yeah, exactly. Greg, I have a lot of things I want to talk to you about. But I feel like we got to start with the big one because you are the only person now,

kind of funny, that has played the latest Pokemon game coming in just a few short months, uh, Pokemon legend Z to A. And like Bless was saying, I'm sure you sat there. You had a big, meaty preview. you must have played at least an hour of this game, correct? Of course. Oh, no, no. So they gave me, they flew me to Anaheim and sent me to Pokemon Worlds for multiple days and I played

two sections of the game and they were 10 minutes of peace plus. Oh, what? So tell me all about your 20 minutes with Pokemon Legends. So yeah, they were broken up into two sections. The first section being you're into a battle zone. Of course, Pokemon Legends, Z to A,

is not your traditional Pokemon. It is not what we're coming off of with Scarlet and Violet, of course. This is back to more like a legend's arseous thing, which even then seems like it's going to be quite different. I say that seems to be because we didn't get free Rome, right? We basically got dropped into this battle zone, which is this section as you see right now on your screen that has a red border around it,

but before when we came in, there was a map and there was the red border. It was night time. This is when the kids go out into the streets and do Pokemon battles. Everyone does, as you see, I am fighting some accountant right now. this is not my footage but it basically is exactly what we did uh you go into these battle zones what we were set up here is an early early early early mission here in the story right where you are rank z right you're not even rank z i think you're the thing below that you're trying to get your rank up to get in there so you can be a part of it you are going into this uh you're getting

ready for the z to a royale so you need to beat these trainers so that you can get your ticket points to get in there and get out and go so you need to get three wins in this area this is all incredibly tutorial. So it was that I did the three, literally as you see here, where they're explaining, of course, that as you run around in here, you need to sneak up on people. So there's this, so you have the advantage in starting the battle.

If you come around a corner and they see you first, they attack you, they get a critical hit. You're off to the races right away. Whereas if you crouch down, hide behind blocks and bricks as you're about to see, you can sneak up on the enemy and go and get there easy. Easy, super simple stealth, but it was a nice wrinkle to what's going on because, of course,

if you've been living under a rock and haven't paid attention, or maybe you're a new Pokemon fan like myself. This is not a turn-based game. This is an active battle system. So our box of faces is covering up the lower left of the screen right now, which if we could remove it, is all your Pokemon. You see their health bars.

You can call them in and out with as you see fit, always having one on the field with the D-PAD. I believe it's actually screenshot it here. Yeah, send out is up, callback is down. Then once they're out and you're targeting with ZL, you can use your face button. then to choose the attacks that you also see up there. So now you see on that screen there was Thundershot,

uh, tackle, etc. You have it. What's interesting about this and this is something that I, even though I'm now, a gazillion hours into violet or whatever, didn't even clock it that there is no PP attached to it.

I saw Casey's IGN preview call that out. The fact that this is just all cool down. You, you're casting these spells. You're throwing these things out. That's what it's all about to go out and attack these things. And again, you get out there.

You feel up the matchup. Again, call back, send out at will. I saw, again, I just listened to Casey's preview from IGM, which is great. You should go watch it, obviously, or read it as well. And one of the things Casey called out in there was the fact of like, oh, to me, this is more of an MMO with Ucast rather than an action game you casting. And what I thought was interesting is after playing it and really marinating, I was like, oh, this is so much like the show. Right now, of course, my Pokemon obsession, which is legitimate, not the bit of me yelling at Tim about the review, is totally fueled by Ben's obsession with Pokemon right now.

And so the reason I restarted Violet, like, whatever, year ago before the switch and then paused to get ready for Switch 2 was the idea that Ben and I started watching the show with Ash and all them. And it's my first time ever, right, because I was a little too old when it originally debuted in America and so on and so forth. And so watching that, it's been fun to be like, oh man, like the show is so different than the game and how the battles happen. And I saw Patrick Klippi recently, of course, does amazing work and has an amazing newsletter substack. that's all about being a parent in this and he's doing a similar thing where showing his daughter the games and then being like well

can we do this can we can we dodge he's like well you can't make your guy dodge that way that's not how it actually is where this game you still can't make that your character or your Pokemon that's on the field dodge but it is the you're calling out just like Ash does right when he goes out there and has Pikachu battle like I'm sure with voice acting right

you call out of course not of course not Tim it's still Pokemon it is still Pokemon it is still gonna have all of the you know tried and true shortcomings, I think, that you come to expect from a Pokemon game. But the battle system, while in some ways unwieldy and like, what the fuck is going on, like, to be tossed in there, and especially for me as somebody who's so new to the franchise and really getting into the minutiae of it, I found enjoyable. I did found it to be chaotic.

I think, you know, as I get in there and I really settle in with whatever my team will end up being, it'll be easier for me to be like, okay, cool, I'm going to throw this person out as you see here. I'd have Fletchling go after the weevil or whatever and know, I should be using this. I should be using that. Call this person, Bapa. For these first three battles that were, for all intents and purposes, brain dead because they're tutorials, it was easy enough to go. The really fun thing was when we beat the three battles and you got your tickets, they were like, all right, you know, before the demo officially ends, there will be one other person around the corner. They're high level if you want to see what. And we all went in and got our heads kicked in or whatever.

I guess someone on the floor did beat them, like in the demo, like some Pokemon master went in there with the incredibly low level team was able to either beat them or get them almost beaten, which I thought was pretty cool. but that wasn't a press person. That was just so many Pokemon worlds. So that was the first part of the demo, run through, do this, battle that. Second part was going after this mega evolution.

This is, you know, making the headlines today because your boy, Halucha has a mega evolution. He's got two great trailers. Yeah, great.

I mean, he's the best. Look at that little wrestler right there. He's the best. More than Poregon? Yeah. Wow. More than Poregon and, of course,

more than shit, fuckle and Pumpcaboo, Pumpcaboo. I do love, Pumpaboo is falling to second place, Poregon to third place. I don't know if you heard this on K-FG-G-G-G-G-G-G-G-G-G-G-G. Sure. I was telling Mike that I want to do a thing where each of us we make a Pokemon party for you.

Sure. Right? Like we choose six Pokemon that we think, all right, this should be Greg Six, and we have you judged, like, which is the most, which six do you like the most? Oh, sure. I love that. I thought you had to commit to it as your six. No, no, I like that. Yeah, I like that. Yeah, I like this little Pokemon fashion show. Yeah. Yeah. I like that. I mean, do you have, do you have, like, a foreign party in your head? Because I feel like between Haluja,

Porrigan Pumpaboo. Yeah. That might be three already. Oh, yeah, yeah. And I would toss, I'm a champ in there. I'm a big fan of him. Yeah.

If we want to jump. I say we jump. Why not? This is a free flow and fun time here. Throw up the squad. Of course, I've been playing the shit out of a Pokemon Violet.

And I did want to come in and give my squad all the love they deserve and go through it. So I did throw up an image there running through the team here. This is straight screenshot from my, you will notice some things out of it.

What are you wow? The levels. Oh, thank you so much. Level 100. I'm not joking. I'm playing Pokemon. I really,

really enjoy Pokemon. I mean, let's get there. I mean, let's get there slowly. I would have told you, of course, starting off, if you were like, Greg, let's talk about your Pokemon. Let's talk about it. And you're talking to me as I started the game. I would have said, well, Quackers is going to be at the top of the list. of course, as you can see there, there are two people here who are code named.

had to look it up. He's quackers. He's goddamn quackers. I don't know this man's name. I may. I, as a newcomer to the franchise, I would, I said quack lava. Okay. But I don't think that's, it's definitely not. Lola. Yeah. Yeah, you got an L at the end. Doesn't matter. Cockaville. No. I'll call him cockable if you want. Yeah. Anyways, I started Pokemon. If they told me, maybe I'd know. I've, you know, I've played, let's go before. I don't have tinkered with other games and yet yet. But like, when, when Violet was coming out and I was like, I'm going to be all in on this. I got it. I got it. I got my team. I gave them all cute nicknames because that's what I thought you do in Pokemon.

But as someone who doesn't know Pokemon, I don't know the sacred texts. This worked against me to such a degree of like, I know, I spent how many hours with Quackers, but I couldn't tell you his God-given name or anything. So I was like this up and down and like, you see Quackers on there, of course, Kwokovall, and then you have Jaguar. That's what Ben renamed Persian. So yeah, this is my squad that I've rocked with for quite some time with Ogre upon being the exception, even Hall Lucha for that moment, but Altaria there at the top, a level 100.

This is a love affair that I began. I just didn't know I would need this blessing where I was in whatever battle in the game just getting my head kicked. And it might have been when I was complaining about remember I said something and everybody made fun of me. I did a Greg way about

Pokemon Violet being hard in quotes. And everybody was like, oh, everybody read it on the show and Greg's an idiot. And it was like, well no, it's just one battle where it's like I need a specific type whatever Altaria, what is, uh, flying ice. I needed an Altaria, right? Where I was like, I just didn't have anybody on my squad leveled up to do that, right?

And so I would have told you at the beginning of all this quackers from start to finish would be MVP of this team. But it was Altaire who came in, save the fucking day, clowned out the one thing that was, you know, giving me trouble or whatever. Oh, that was it. Beating the, um, uh, university head, you know, when he's, he's acting like Clive or whatever. I know you're not clive.

You stupid idiot. When I'd fight him outside the school, whatever, he had somebody. Oh, the guy who flower drop, it was doing the drop shot on me every time. Doesn't matter. Don't worry about it. But I'm Googling and I'm using my charts or whatever. And I was like, I found, I found, you know, like he's a student. He acts like a student.

He's not a student. He's under cover. He's the, he's the headmaster undercover. Yes, yes, okay. Yeah, yeah, it's a, I was thinking of a different guy. Cute little story. Anyways, I needed, Altara stepped in. And once Altaria did that, it was like, you're, your God tier, you're with me the whole way.

You're above Quackers. I'm sorry, Quackers takes me. We've all heard. my complaints about quackers before. Quackers starts very cute. I feel like I got duped. I was sold a false bill of good. That's how it is. Okay. Pokemon Violet drops. Which one of these guys you want. When I originally started Violet, my first play-through, I did Fue Coco. Named him Fuegel del Sol. I'm like, here we go. We're going to do some stuff. When I restarted, I was like, you know what? I got problems that he looks like a Trump duck, but he's a cute Trump duck. So like, get on the

team and let's go. And then this guy just evolved to be uglier and uglier until here we are. This figure skater, all right? I don't know. Circus. I'm like, I do not vibe with you, Quackers, but you've been there the whole time. Thank you. You mentioned Ogrepan next.

Come on. Ogrepan, of course, from the first DLC here. Of course, we get in there. By the way, the fact that Greg has this Pokemon from the end of the first DLC, that shows how into this year is. I mean, the numbers impress people too.

So, yeah, this isn't a joke. We can get into my obsession with Pokemon as well. Oh, that's, yeah. We'll wait to get into that. No, no, I mean, like, for real, for what we're doing. Ogre Pond When they're like We got in

So it's a little bit of Spoilers here For the DLC All right The first one Area Zero Zero Yeah part one

Area Zero is the place In Pal Dea Don't they call it Area Zero part one The mystery of area The treasure The treasure Whatever the fuck

Yeah Part one of the DLC They set this thing up They guess what There was this fucking ogre This monster

These three Pokemon chased it off And I'm like Oh man This thing's gonna look horrendous We go to

The fucking Festival of town And this little DoDrop shows up and he's running around and I'm like, I'm annoyed at first. I'm like, you're cute, but whatever, you know what I mean? And of course, I'm new to all this. I didn't expect that he's going to join the team. He's going to join the squad. He joins the squad and I'm like, well, I'll never fucking use you. And then it was like, you need a grass type. Like, oh, I don't

have a level. Oh, but Ogrepan is grass type. And with the masks, I can switch him out to be also. Ogrepan, I apologize. I apologize. I did not know how cool you were. You are now one of the squad members. You are a ride or die for Ogrepan and it was a big deal when we got our first pack of trading cards at Pokemon World, which we'll talk about. Who do we pull? Ogrepan. He was there. He was there for me. You know what I mean? When I'm walking on

the beach and there's one set of footprints, it's because Ogrepan was carrying me. Think about it. Behind Ogrepan is Jaguar. Again, this is Persian. This is one, this is a level 81 on my team. Ogrepan's level 83. Quackers is 90. Alteria is 100 if you're an audio listener. Jaguar, of course, named by Ben. When I started getting my wheels,

here and I was like, all right, I'm getting serious about Pokemon. Turned it on. Ben jumped in. And of course, the first thing you want to do is once he found out you could name him. He wanted to rename everybody for me. So he renamed Jaguar, or Persian Jaguar, which I'm fine with and I like. And Jaguar, just a strong guy. You know what I mean? He's just out there doing what he's got to do. No frills. No frills, but he's got bite. He's out there and do that moves I need. This is definitely not a favorite, I would say, in a late game content. Sure. Persian. You know what I mean? Normally like they end up getting the cut somewhere along the line.

But we have a nickname. There's a some personality. The background, the normal moves he's tossed in. I'm like, I can use these. I like that, okay? Then you got belly bolt. Belly bolt, another one who showed up, and I'm like, I don't know about this business.

And he for a while was running neck and neck with Big Bird. Big Bird I don't have on here. I forgot to pull him. He's the yellow Pokemon that then has like the tall neck. He looks like a big bird to me. I can find him if we need to drink ad break to give me his actual name or whatever, but he was another electric type Pokemon who I'd been using quite a bit. And then

Belly Bolt got in there. And they were kind of the brothers of destruction. They kind of had this thing going on where it was like just double electric moves fucking people up. And I forget. Belly Bolt is one that is heavily featured in like raids and endgame stuff. Well, and that was why Belly Bolt's still here and Big Bird isn't at the moment. Big Bird, at some

point just wasn't getting it done. Belly Bolt started, I think, leveling faster, level 80. The Chad's saying, Am Farros. Is that what he's decidedly not a bird? Yeah, he's definitely not a bird. It's funny because in my brain When he said yellow and not long neck I was like Amphirals But there's no way

My apologies First off look at his little hands He got any fingers No those are wings then He's a bird I mean he's probably the closest Pokemon to big bird Yeah exactly

Aside from like electibus Again is where I fuck myself Where you name him on As soon as you get him I name him Oh Zaptose is a big yellow bird Yeah No that's a good call

Electabuzz Belly ball Bens got me out of so many Jams out there Just dropping the electricity Clearing in the field Gotta love them appreciated. He'll always have a spot on the team. And then

level 83 is Hall Lucha. My favorite Pokemon. Hall Lucha came on late. Someone I think finally BS me, that's Blue Sky Tim. Instead, Greg, are even aware that there's a Luchador wrestling Pokemon named Hal Lucha? And I was like, what the fuck? And it was one of those, drop everything. We're cracking the wikis. Where can I go find him? And immediately went to

to ha Lucha. So I've been trying to power level him up. I obviously would understand that you wouldn't remember this, Greg. Yeah. But the reason that I went to Mexico, we're not talking about all the secret things I did. But it was to get Halucha. Yeah, that's right. You did.

I don't remember that. I remember you had an exclusive guy there. Right now with the announcement today, I got BS. That's a blue sky to him. About all this Hal Lucha, you know, mega evolution stuff, amazing trailers.

I made Ben Washington the car on the way to school today. There's some crossover in Mexico going on where they're doing like a Hau Lucha event at one of the Lucha Libre things down there. We should go. We should go. Drop everything. I do want to talk about those real quick, just because I,

Can you bring up the Halucha hype trailer, Barrett? Because today they announced Mega Halucha and they did it in a really cool little animated short that's this was the gameplay. This is the actual gameplay. Can we see the other one? Yeah, the other one, it's Halucha versus Machamp.

So did you see this bus? Yeah, yeah, we talked around. K, which is a little bit. Super fun little animated thing like debuting Mega Halucha for the first time. And I love it because in addition to this really cool little short, Barrett, if you could switch over now to the other the Victory Bell hype trailer a week or two ago they did the same thing for Mega Victory Bell

announcing that and it was like a super different like Resident Evil almost kind of did you see this? Yeah, I didn't like it. Yeah, yeah, it's a lot. It looks like many things that you don't want to talk about. But what I appreciate about them going this different route like this kind of found footage, scary thing of them eventually crossing pads with Mega Victory Bell for the first time. Oh, I didn't see this.

you just saw the ball sack looking yeah i just saw yeah victory bell hopping around looking like a ball sack from south park but this is fucking freaky yeah yeah this looks like this does look like residue i thought bear was trolling us jesus like this is the debut and i just want to say from a marketing perspective i love this because these are the type of things that make these mega evolution stand out more than as opposed to say there's 19 new mega evolutions they all kind of feel the same and all the gameplay uh stuff just kind of looks the same but when you do do this, it adds that personality that like this stuff will stick with you in the future. And I just think

that's really cool that they're going the extra mile for this because they don't always do that. So shout out to y'all for trying. Now as I have of course celebrated Halucia across the internet since finding him and discovering him and really bringing him to relevancy to get him into this game. So many people have come at me with Incineror. He's the wrestling

heel Pokemon. And I look at him and I just don't vibe the same. Like he, when I think wrestling Pokemon, obviously Lucha DeLiber of course, but then my champ, he's got a championship belt. He's doing his goddamn thing. I think it's got a belt made of fire. Yeah. I hear you,

but he just looks like, he looks like he's going to fight Shadow the Hedgehog or Sonic the Hedgehog. I'm not saying he's not cool. Play him in Smash Brothers. Okay. See if that changes your mind at all. I just, he doesn't scream wrestling at a glance like Haluja and Machamp do.

That's all I'm saying. I'm not saying I'm not going to get him on the team. I'm not going to make a whole wrestling team. I'm not going to make a whole wrestling team. Because my champ, I've always associated with boxing, but I guess now I'm looking at him. Oh, that makes sense, though, too.

I understand that. Yeah. But then we just saw him wrestle Hal Lucha here in this video. I guess Macha. Yeah, you're right. Like, UFC actually makes more sense because, yeah, Machop. M. M.M.A, you can do it all.

Machoke. Yeah. Mets may you can do it all. Mixed martial. Yeah. That's my definition. Yeah, it's crazy. Anyways, back to, do you have anything else to say about Zah?

Well, I want to keep getting over. We're talking about my team. One thing. I do want to shout out two honorable mentions. All right. Number one, Torkel. He added to the team lead. He's only a level 74 right now in Pokemon.

Violet. Like him a lot. He's like honestly the first fire Pokemon I've really fucked with throughout this entire thing. So he's cool. We're early stages of our relationship though. But I really want to give a shout out and an apology for not making the final final final cut to Benny DeBull. This is another one we

renamed. He's a Toros. Oh. What type of Toros? Just straight Toros? Just straight normal Toros. Another guy who got me out of so many jams where everybody's fainting, whatever. And then he would come in, do the thing, spin around double kick him and like fucking kick, knock him out.

You're a normal boy. He's only a level 61. I am. A normal gym leader. Greg Miller. That's me, everybody. Which is the most abnormal person. He's only level 61 though, but it was like for those 61 levels, we were fucking with him hard. And then it was

like, Benny, I need the spice. I need the moves. I need the counters. You know what I mean? I can't just have you out there doing normal stuff. So he's been riding the bench a long time, but I'll never forget him. Wow. I never took Greg as a normal gym leader, but I feel like now that I, now I think about it, I can see it a little bit.

It's not as insulting as it sounds, by the way, Greg. Oh, I don't take it as insulting. No, no, no, no. And I think it honestly is 100% true based on my gameplay styles. You know, I usually am that guy in a game where it's like, here's your basic weapon. And I'm like, all right, I start pouring XP shit into it. And they're like, well, here's this thing.

I'm like, no, I'm already, I'm already so far on the road to making this weapon the most powerful thing in the world. Why would I switch over to whatever electricity special kind of thing? This will make sense later on in a future review, even more so. Back to Pokemon, Legends. Z to A though. Keep that's what we call a teaser, a breadcrumb for you. I think overall, I mean, I'm talking about

how it works and plays, right? I think it's worth calling out for this. I don't want to talk about the second demo as well, but the first demo, the first thing I thought after playing so much Pokemon Vylo was, holy shit, this looks great. And I think Pokemon Violet on Switch 2 runs really well and is crisp and whatever,

but whatever, it's still Pokemon Violet. And I think this is still Pokemon, but really crisp colors, really, and I'm playing on a TV, not handheld, really crisp colors, really great animations. It's the same thing of usual where it's not as many shadows as I'd like.

It doesn't, you know, I mean, they're doing, you see it in the game play. I'm surprised you're saying you think this looks good. I thought, well, I mean,

again, maybe it's this, not only had I been playing Violet at this point, I had been going backwards, where we can talk about that in a second, but I've been, I'm a gazillion hours into Violet, but then I went back and was doing Legends Arseus,

and then I was back to doing Sword and Shield as well. That's looking one. So it was like, I agree, actually. It turns of style. I mean, I don't think it holds up. I think the wild areas

are the only ugly things in certain shield. Otherwise, beautiful games. This one I thought really crisp visuals really ran well. I like the bright colors of it.

That's something I kind of feel like I don't get enough of in violet as a vibrancy of it. I thought this section was really vibrant of the game. Section two of the demo, the next 10 minutes were a big boss fight. This was a mega evolution. I follow a Zygard.

That's what I said. That's the Z. Normally games. the Pokemon games would have red blue and the yellow version or there's always the third version for X and Y, Gen 6 we all expected there would be Pokemon Z.

We never got it. And so that's kind of what we're getting here. We're finally kidding them. As you see, he takes you up to a rooftop here where you find a mega, a rogue mega evolution abzol. Abzol, I assume. Absole, absole, absole. And you get into this big boss

battle with them. So, interesting stuff here in terms of a few different things. The normal battles with the Pokemon trainers. You're throwing your Pokemon out there. They're doing the moves you command. Congratulations. That's great. Up here in the battle with a mega evolution and then also in the wild ones, you can be hit as well. Not in your trainer battles, but on the other ones. So you have to dodge roll a lot in this one. I think when I looked at screenshots of this beforehand, I was like, man, this looks basic as hell and not ugly, but like not visually interesting. Playing it, I think it was the most exciting section of the game. compared to the battles, which again, we're frantic and crazy, and I don't know what I'm exactly doing, and I'm throwing out these Pokemon that aren't mine or whatever. But getting in here, there is this.

All right, he's getting ready to do this AOE attack. Everybody, you run out and your Pokemon chases, you Lucario here, right? You also, though, have to dodge to miss his attacks, but then you're picking up this, what they call the orbs that are mega power that are falling off him to fill up your mega gauge down there so that you can mega evolve LaCario and have him go out and then do the moves to actually be able to fight him right up against.

it. But he got to run from this ring of death. You know, your power, his moves get more powerful as you go. You can, of course, pause, go into your menu, apply a potion, apply a spray, or whatever. But this was the part where it was like, oh, this is challenging isn't the right word. But I guess it is. I mean, it's not like obviously fucking soul's combat or whatever. But this was like, oh, shit, hold on a second. I'm getting it over my head or I need to actually focus on orbs or I need to get a

heal in there or whatever. Granted, these are all first tastes. We'll see how that lasts three, four hours in when you've been doing a lot of it. But this was the one I was like, oh, this was exciting. okay, I like doing this lot. Not that I didn't like the other one, but it was very much like, oh, fuck, fucking attack this and what's available.

Just do this, do this. It's cool. Yeah, I'm really excited to play with this different gameplay style. I feel like it's the right call for the Legends franchise and like what they're doing here with Z.A. It's interesting at the very least. I don't know how much it's going to actually hold up throughout the whole game,

but I do like the concept of it being way more active because I also have been playing a lot more of Scarlet and Violet recently because I never really. because I never finished the second round of DLC, so I was trying to do it for this. And I am like, oh man, like the turn-based stuff, when you're in it and you're going through like the ranks of like all the elite four or just like actually fighting

as trainer after trainer, it's super fun. Just at this point in the game, like going up against a bunch of random like encounters. It's like this isn't fun. I just want to run away. Yeah. This is so slow. I want to keep telling you about a whole bunch of Pokemon stuff

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I've never been to a Pokemon World Championships. I will make my debut next year, as I imagine, all of us here, kind of funny will as we take over world as it takes over San Francisco. But how was Anaheim's? It was awesome. I was not a thousand percent sure what we were. we're getting into. Of course, you know, Pokemon reached out, said, hey, do you want to come down and do this Zah preview? They of course reached out to Tim. And then Tim said, I'm no longer able to.

I'm no longer the number one Pokemon fan. So I'll give it to Greg. And I said, thank you for realizing what's happening here. And so yeah, got to go down there. And it was like pretty breakneck speed of what was it was all going to look like and how it was going to happen. And so got down there on Wednesday, doors don't open until Friday, but Wednesday they gave us a private time in the Pokemon center to go buy stuff. And Barry, if you want to page through the Pokemon World Photo Dump, uh, one I gave you on Instagram. Like, I, I love being a fan of things. Like, I love being a fan. And what I've said from the beginning with Ben, right, is that no matter what Ben's into, I'm going to be into,

right? So inevitably when he likes sports and it's a sport I'm not a fan of, I'm going to be a giant's fan to, in a way I've never been other than just being a, oh, this is cool. I live in San Francisco. And so him and me falling in love with Pokemon at the same time has been great, but then to get to go to this Pokemon center and have it be wall to wall to wall in the convention center. You know, the WrestleMania Superstore is the example of what I've been to before of here are all this different things.

And, you know, Jordan Midler was there from VGC and we hung out all week long. But when he bumped into me there, he's like, what? Ben was scooping up all I, we bought so many goddamn Pokemon plushies, right? And he's scooping him up and Miller's like, what are you looking for? And I'm like, I want to haul lucha, right? And like five minutes later, from had gone all the way to the other side of the store and come back with my little Hal Lucci's like, I got you one. I'm like, thank you, sir. I've caught that one.

And so it was just this like eyes wide thing of walking through, you know, Jen got to come a little bit after we had gotten in, we got her in. She was on the search for Gengar merch. So it was just like going and finding and everyone there being so stoked about something else that they were finding, whether it was a skateboard or me trying to talk Ben out of trying to buy this. Ben wanted a quick ball or a beast ball that they were selling there with all the other balls, but it was like the $150 color. I don't like Ben, we can't throw this ball. This is not what you want. I'm sure

they'll have a stuffy polka ball. They did not have stuffy poca balls there. So it was like I had at lunch I ordered one off Amazon for him on top of all the other stuff we got. But I'm getting, I got the shirt I'm wearing, we got the thing. We're getting the tour. We're doing the stuff. There's the photo ops. You know, there's this giant snorlax I was taking photos with. There's this

gigantic wall of plushes throughout the years that I was taking photos with. Like, it was so cool to be there and see people celebrating it. And we were there. This is like the press influencer side or whatever. That was our thing. But then after, I think our session was like noon to two or 11 to two, you could say for as long as you wanted to. And at two, that is when they opened the store for everybody. But it was also, I was like, oh, man, so people can come in out all week along. I'm like, oh, no, like, you have to have a reservation. And we've been booked for months. I was like, oh, okay, okay. You know what I mean?

Of what that was. And so it was an incredible hype cycle to just be there on it and see all, you know, we've been to Anaheim Convention Center so many times, Tim, for vidcons, for PSX, to see it all decked out for Pokemon. I see all these installations. You know, there was the photo of me with the inflatable Pikachu. That was right out front and all these different things, let alone the cosplay and the people and the stuff. And it was just like, oh, cool. And that was just on Wednesday

before it was really, really open. Thursday, we did a family Disney Day. Wednesday's when I saw Z-D-A as well. And then Friday, yeah, got to go to the opening ceremonies and see it all kick off and start. And if, Barry, you can show the video of us entering. We came in, obviously, with the other

media folks to go to our science seats. And it, when they opened it up, we were like the first people in that didn't work there. And so this is, you know, Ben coming down the aisle way here. And it's also then the people who are working the events first time seeing a kid. Ben is, you know, three and a half. And it was this insane moment here of Chain Event of This woman starts the high five. And then every person working this line high fives Ben. Like I have been desperately trying to find the photos because, of course, I think you might seem.

even pop in. There's like real photographers here. There's one right there. Like someone has these photos of him doing this. But like look at his face. Like you want to talk about trying to make a core memory for your son at this Pokemon event. Him coming in, getting high fives from everybody. The very like last people gave him a pat, his first like real pack of Pokemon cards. And so to settle in and we settled in, we sat there for like an hour while people filtered in and set it in. And then they kicked this thing off. And in the day and aged him where E3 is dead. This was such a, hey, you are in

of the, you are at the Sony press conference, the Nintendo press conference, you were at a press conference. Let's start it with a musical number, everybody. Strap it and watch me dance. Yeah. They go hard. Real quick, I want to say the background music to that clip is

as Ben's getting high five walking down the intro, it's the song Road to Viridian City. No way. Dude. The Tudia Massie soundtrack played. I thought when you had that on Instagram, like, that's so awesome. And a couple days ago, you texted

me something. I'm not going to explicitly say what you asked. But you were asking me if I'm familiar with the song, what kind of Pokemon are you? What kind of Pokemon are you? Of course, and I didn't say, are you familiar with it? I just said, I know. I don't want to say what you. I think it's sexual. I think it is. Yeah. Okay. How do you do the things you do? I get it though. Yeah, no, that makes sense. Show me secrets deep inside. It's so good, man. But yeah, I love that this, obviously, is a franchise that's existed so long. And to see the world, championships and next year at Pokemon XP in San Francisco where they're actually doing more than just the championships that's being even a bigger celebration of the entire franchise. I love that Road to Veridian

City from the 2B Master soundtrack is still being used. Like it's still just as relevant now as it was 30 years ago. Like that's so exciting to do. Again, like, you know, I think I always love being introduced to a new fandom, right? And I talked about this a lot with Monster Jam of coming and going to Monster Jam's World Championships and Salt Lake City and finding people are like, oh my, you're into this. like I'm into wrestling and like pose into baseball and da da da da da da it was the same vibe here where like i'm Jordan middler by the way Jordan middler from VGC the big man as you know if you haven't heard he has been promoted he is officially uncle Jordan because him and Ben were inseparable this entire time all of Wednesday then he came to dinner with us then he's like I'd like to go to

Disney like come with us tomorrow Jordan midler went to Disneyland with us the entire Italian amazing it's to the point I send this that I know you guys already know when Ben did his Sonic Crossworld's preview this week. Midler sent to our WhatsApp group with me, him, and Jen. But it's really just so Jordan can talk to Ben, this voice memo about how good he did. Ben responded. Midler responded.

Like, it's like Uncle Jordan is like, he's the coolest guy. And it's to the point still, when we see a Pokemon we don't know, we've been sending it to the WhatsApp group of like, hey, Uncle Jordan, and which Pokemon's this? And he'll immediately respond no matter what time it is because he's a psychopath.

I digress them. When I'm sitting there in the audience, waiting for the start, and they're playing all these old Pokemon songs. Uncle Jordan could not help himself from turning and being like, all right, this is from this. And that's what you hear this song, everybody's going. Everybody's hearing right now is dead.

I'm like, oh, no. That's how long it's been around. But yeah, like we added so many of them in the Spotify one. What just beyond is on the top of my like Spotify songs, which is one of the live performances they did there. But yeah, they come out. Yeah, because every year for the world championships, they, well, I mean, not every year.

The last couple years, they put out like an EP of like five or six songs that are made just for that year's event. It's essentially modern to be a master type stuff. Super cool. Yeah, it was awesome. And then, yeah, like, you know, they come out. They do this Ben enraptured. Barrett, if you can toss up the one about Ben taking a video or a photo or whatever.

Ben asked for Jen's phone so that he could stand up and he could take phone because he saw everybody. It's like, you know, my kid is the big, he's a three and a half year old. Monkey C, monkey do. He saw everybody else lifting up their phones. And Ben was like, I got to you too. I got it as well So he's up there Taking it like you know

This is like unheard of We tried to get earplugs in for him He would not stick with him He would not deal with it or whatever But it was awesome and amazing And you know it was a really short start To the whole thing And then it was like all right

The Pokemon World Championship has begun And it was just like people flooded off To go play cards to go play the game To go do whatever Did you get to see any of the actual competition Because you weren't there the entire time No we were we were there for the kickoff On Friday and left Friday afternoon

Okay Because like some of it It is so cool. Do you see any of the clips of the trading card game with like the video floor? No, I didn't see that. Oh my God. It is what dreams are made of, man. Like on the video floor,

you see like what hands they have and like what are cards are in active play. Like they just did such a great job with it. I can't wait for next year. I think they're going to go even bigger. Yeah. And I mean, this was humongous and it was spot, you know,

they had the Pokemon Museum where I walked through and I saw every one of the games with every one of their consoles. That was super cool. There's the, if you want to toss up the photo barrett of, me and Ben in front of the Maradon, you know,

me ride on. You know we're talking about here. Yeah. Yeah, my motorcycle from Violet. I was fucking stoked to see him over there, just chilling out. Like,

it was such a Disneyland kid in the candy store thing. And so there were so many other events going on that like, we had been told leading up throughout the thing like, there's this, they're that, and then there's like learn how to play. And Ben really wanted to learn how to play the card game. And so we left this section pretty early and went over there,

but the line was already capped. It was like, like maybe in 45 minutes. Like, oh, we're gonna go. Ben's like, can we go home and play Pokemon Violet? I'm like, yeah, we can go back to the hotel and play it. Here's him ripping his first pack. Now he's playing fucking the TCG pocket on my phone. Hell yeah.

He's going through Go doing that as well. He always wants to see it. Super excited for the video games. I have not told him about Legend Seed A yet because I don't want a Donkey Kong situation. Donkey Kong, I got asked about every other day for months. So we will wait and he will seize odds himself when it arrives and we're reviewing it. Is there like a Pokemon thing you're most,

decided to introduce him to. Like you said, the part of the cartoon is like the main way he's interacting with it and the toys and stuff, right? But like, do you look at the video games and you're like, oh man, he's going to absolutely love this? Or do you look at the cards or like,

is there a specific thing? No, no, no, no, no, no, you don't understand. He's already playing the video games.

Oh, okay. So my summer break here with him for the two weeks. Like, if you remember, I was leaving, I'm like, I am going to Tahoe.

I'm going to the World Championships. I'm only going to pack my switch. I'm only going to play my Switch to you. I am only going to play Pokemon Violet because I want to have it wrapped up so we can review it when I get back and I can be all locked in and tell you about my team and yada yada yada yada what I of course didn't foresee was Ben seeing me playing it and be like can I have it? And I'm like oh well yeah so it's like Ben I would do something and then Ben would want to play it and I would pass it that's why I went back to Arceus that's why I went

back to sword and shield is that I picked up the other switch too and I was like all right I want to play I can't play my game because he's playing it and I we had got Jen has a scarlet. So we started a new scarlet thing. Didn't hit the same way. He wanted the Pokemon he's already captured. He wanted his boxes. He knows his,

like, I am, have no frame of reference for kids in video games. So I knew something was awry this GDC when I was talking to a developer. And he was like, yeah, does Ben have interest?

I'm like, oh, he plays for it. He plays, and like, no, but like you play it for him. I'm like, no,

no, he picks up the kidney. And I showed him, he's like, my daughter is seven years old. that she doesn't, and I still get it in the Greg way of like, my kids the same age as Ben, but it's still just a palm on the controller trying to move the stick.

Like, Ben knows games and he knows it disturbingly well for Pokemon, especially right now, where he is like, he knows how to go to the boxes. He knows how to switch out the team. I mean,

I went over for dinner a couple weeks ago and Ben was playing next to me, and I was shocked at like seeing him navigate the menus where I'm like, this kid can't read. You know what I mean? I mean, definitely this kid. this kid can't read, but like he knows what he's doing. It brought me back to being a dumbass kid too. But like, yeah.

But I wasn't three years old. You know what I mean? It was wild then. He was like stoked about catching a sight there. And I'm like, yeah, man, me too, bro. Yeah. Oh my God. And like, here's the other thing we'll talk about.

All right. I'm going to try to, I'm going to copy this image. I want to toss it into assets. But how many weeks ago was that when you came through with a for a lovely, yeah, three weeks or whatever? And I tossed this in. I think it'll work. Maybe not.

I'm trying to copy out of an image. You let me know if it actually shares or whatever. Yeah, here they are playing Pokemon together. It's him and Ben at the kitchen table. Three weeks ago, they came over. We've played a lot of Pokemon since then. And of course, kids' brains, they're empty. They got nothing clanking around like we do.

You're trying to remember your fucking third grade algebra teacher, whatever. This morning, we're putting on shoes. And I asked permission. I'm like, can I bring Halucha? I need to, because, like, this was almost another thing at the Pokemon Center where it was like, I got the, Halucha and then Ben's like, all right. Um, are you going to get your own?

And I was like, all right. We bought him when we left. And Ben was like, all right, cool. But he had his team of other Pokemon he had bought. And he's like, he, I bought. He's like, so can I have Halucha and you go buy your own Halucha? And I was like, well, no, it's, but you can keep him. It's fine.

He doesn't need to be on my desk, Ben. It's totally fine. Don't worry about it. Blah, blah, blah. Um, and he was like, okay, fine. But so like today was I had to ask permission if I could take out. Barrett's response at assets was Windows doesn't like it. I'm going to try to convert it. Hold on. Let me screenshot it.

H-E-I-C file. Yeah, I think Jen took it on her phone, so it's like the weird one. Or maybe Gia did. That's just a screenshot of my thing as a P-N-G. That should be easier for you. I was like, okay, whatever. Today I was like, can I bring Hall of Lush? He's like, yeah, no problem. Great. And so we're sitting there putting on shoes and put on the shirt.

He's like, I like, I like, thanks. And then he goes three weeks later, Did you know that did you know Uncle Tim's favorite Pokemon is Cyther? And I was like, is it? And he's like, yeah. And I'm like, yeah. He's like, are you sure? He's like, yeah. He's like, ask him today. That's funny. Not my favorite, but one of my faves for sure.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That is awesome. I did say that I really love Cyphe. That's so funny. Here's Uncle Tim showing him's Pokemon Go collection. If I. Oh, yeah. Yeah. But no, no. So like, Ben is all in on it. So it's like I'm, if anything, what I'm excited for would be next. the next generation of Pokemon, when it will be cool.

You're getting, we got them both. You're A, I'm B, let's play side by side and the trade and do the whole thing. It's going to be awesome. Gen 10 is going to be, hopefully, such a great jump on point. I mean, it being the 30th anniversary of Pokemon next year's 10th anniversary ago. Like, I think next year is going to be the biggest year in Pokemon history, which is very exciting. And also, Worlds in San Francisco. And also, Pokemon champions dropping.

Like this next year will be the first time the Pokemon World Championships are played in Pokemon champions as opposed to the latest game, which is awesome. And so, yeah, I'm very, very excited to see all that. Yeah. Obviously, like, you've been in video games for a very long time. So you obviously, you know, the power of Pokemon and the popular area of Pokemon. But, like, now that you're at where you're at now and you see, like, you know, I looked at up on Wikipedia of list of highest grossing IP in Pokemon's number one.

And almost like, by far, right? Like, it almost doubles Mickey Mouse and Friends as far as what that is, right? Like, was there a moment for you as you're experiencing all this where it clicks in a place of like, oh, this is what it, like, this makes sense now or like you feel like you're, I guess a part of that wave now? Yeah, 100%. You know, I, I've described it before as a quicksand where it's like, I've always, you know, it's always tickled the edge of my gaming periphery where I'm like, ah, yeah, you know,

I'm interested in it, but I'm never, I don't have the nostalgia out of blah, blah, blah, so to have the show lay the groundwork for this is the world to jump into the game and be the thing about it. But then even then I say, I say. I know, and I know so many other people, too, it's derogatory of like, it's a simple game. It's not, you know what I mean? It's like, this isn't throwing shade as much as admitting what it is.

It's a very basic game. Even Violet's very basic in terms of what you're doing. The storylines aren't amazing. Why are you playing this? What's going on? There's the collecting, blah, blah, blah. But it was like when it really had its fucking hooks in me, where it was like, all right,

bends down and I grab the switch and I sit down and like, tonight I'm just catching. Or maybe I'm not. Like, the DLC is a great example of like, I want to knock all this out before we come back to work, and it's redacted versus redacted or redact, you know what I mean? There's a million games to review.

But I started up and be like, all right, cool. Four of these gym leaders in DLC2 to be no big deal. But then I'm like, oh, wait, these are all new areas with all new Pokemon. And the next thing I know, it's been 45, 50 minutes of me just catching Pokemon. Then to go off. And then I think the DLC2 has done such a great job of delivering what I wanted out of the what I want out of Pokemon, period, which is, hey, think about the makeup of your team and hey here is a challenge that you have to overcome

whether it be like we were talking yesterday sam of like you come to the one guy and he's like cool you can only fight me with Pokemon you've caught in this region or fight these guys with and i'm like ah that's a nice wrinkle that's i you know in somebody in the one you all made fun of me for the greggway where i was like oh man Pokemon's is hard or whatever knowing people would come in and hear me actually talk about this one specific battle it was tough because all of a sudden it was like oh you really got to think about your party makeup every other time I felt like in this game, I'm running with the squad you saw. And even if it was, oh, this is super effective against them and my guy gets faints, this

faints. Eventually we'd run into a guy who's just like, I'm fucking 20 levels higher and it's super effective. Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you. And it was like, okay, cool. I got out of it. Team star, I was always ready for these fights to be like, ah, they're going to test me. They're metal. I need to figure. And I'd come in like, oh, this was easy. Maybe a different item, you know, variety at the end to fight the boss. But otherwise it was fine. Throughout Scarlet and Violet, like there's in the core game. and there's, I'd say, only like, three or four of, like, the kind of, like, endgame level fights that have any type of difficulty of you need to actually be strategic and think about

what you're doing. But the entirety of the second DLC pack, the Indigo disc, is a bit more focused on the battles. But something I really appreciate, I think that this is a great game for you to start this journey with Greg and, like, to have played so much as the DLC one was, like, fun, kind of more story-based thing. And the DLC-2 is very much just like, here's the battles, here's the double battles, like, this is like what you could be doing if you take Pokemon very seriously

but it's also a great kind of jump on point to just catch up because every legendary ever is accessible in the in the DLC and every starter Pokemon ever and it's just being in a very simple four biome in one area like it allows you to just get the most distilled

like hey let's take any of the adventure out of this it is just a you want water go to the water area you want fire go to the fire mountaine whatever it's all one place. So it's just a good area to be able to catch all the Pokemon, actually find a team that you want. And like, it just is a really, really good, um, hey, you might not have played in a long time. This is the way to, to get really into it. And I, I just appreciate that, uh, making my

way through it for the first time now. I think this is the other thing, too, of, you know, slight spoilers for the DLC for this game. I'm sure you've all played a million times or whatever. I don't really. I don't think that that many people played. I, I like this story here so much better as well. Of like you get it, you know, you go to this new town in the first one, you meet new people, you meet this kid, Kieran, or whatever, and then by number two, he's what I assume, my interpretation of having a rival in Pokemon's always been. It's the best. Which is like, you didn't have in Violet, right? We had the girl, but she was always very nice. I like her.

I like her fine, but I didn't feel like we were like rivals. No, for sure. And that is one of my biggest criticisms of Pokemon is like they got rid of the rival idea a long time ago. It's always your fucking stupid little friends or whatever. They're way too nice. It's like, no, I want you to choose. the third Pokemon that's strong against me. Not the one that I'm strong against.

Like, what are you? I also get it. Whatever. They solved that here. I think that the Kieran stuff is very, very good. And I want so much more of it. I know that a lot of people haven't seen this.

I know bless you haven't even gotten through. You didn't play the DLC. No, I didn't play the DLC. But you played the core game. You know that it does have some epic moments when it wants to. And the area of zero stuff is fantastic. So cool. Yeah,

really great ending. I want to show a one minute video that is the one of the final battles of the DLC. So if you don't want any spoilers for this, go away for this one minute and come back. But I just need us all to see what Pokemon can be. Because this is so fucking good.

What am I pulling? Pull up the epic music from YouTuber McSally's long play. So shout out to McSally doing a long play of the second DLC here. I just need y'all to see the presentation of this and hear the fucking song. Can we get sound out here?

I'm not getting any sound either. Oh. That's fun. It's all about to see this. But again, no, I think that's what I feel both these DLCs are. I'm like what Pokemon could be in terms of telling. Because outside of this, again, the team star thing and they're bullies, but they were bullied. And I'm like, what is this all about?

I don't care. And I just want to be the best than you get to all these people. Like, I cared about having a fight here. Plus, look at the presentation of this shit. I should have had voices. I mean, I'm excited for just a cutscene. That's what Cole finds out for me. That's got hard to work.

All of it. Right here. Hell yeah. I love that this feels directed. Hold on. Keep listening. Quackers. Ogrepan.

This is a good team. Oh, yeah. Like, what the fuck? It's so good. You see this, Greg? If you have Ogrepan on your team, he reacts to you having it because of the first deal is. Of course.

Of course. So fucking cool. Anyway. That's cool. I was playing this last night and I was like watching some shit on TV while playing on my switch with the volume of just little. And when this started, I was like, it's TV time. Like, we're going all in on this.

Go to bed. It's so, like, just I just need to say this. Like, I love, there's moments throughout Scarlet, the main game and in the DLC that have this level of like direction to it. And it's like, I just want so much more of this. And like, imagine that with voice acting. Like, imagine how hard it would go. when we've had it before.

Pokemon Battle Revolution, Pokemon Stadium. They would have light little like announcers saying what's going on. That's all we need. That's not all we need. We need so much. But God,

I wish we had it. That would be just such a step forward for it. A quick question from the chat that I'm also wondering, big ass, did Toby Fox do the DLC music as well? I think so. I don't know for sure though,

but that sounds like it. I'm pretty sure based on a comment when I was bitching, or not bitching, when Jen was bitching about Ed Shear and doing the credits. Somebody called that out of thought. That was definitely a moment for me where I got to the edge

year in credits and I think that was still when I was reviewing the game. I don't know that hit it. And I was like I need to talk to somebody about this. Like this game is actually special and I was back when it was like you know, the big conversation was about how badly that game ran and all that shit. Right. But I remember coming into work and I think Tim asked me how it was it. And like, I forget exactly what I said, but I was definitely like, yo, this shit is fucking fire. You sold me on the game.

Yeah. I was like, this is really good. I have never been in a hype cycle for any video game as more of a heater than I was going into Scarlet and Violet. And like, here I am now. You know, so, I think as I was recommending, I was like, I think I was shocked by my own, like, impressions. I was like, dude, this is fucking good. And I kind of can't believe it, even though it runs terribly.

So, Greg, I want to get to now your review of Pokemon, Scarlet, and Violet. The game came out in 2022. It is August 28th, 2025. You've now beat it. Yeah. Are you ready to give a score on the kind of funny scale? Yeah, I am. But I think it's also probably, and I know this sounds goofy as being a professional video game

reviewer for nearly 20 years. I feel like it's almost one of those, you got to look at this is my first Pokemon game, which I know isn't technically true. I did let's go, but it was something to do with Jen. Like I don't remember anything about it, really. So I just don't count that.

Whereas this is the first time I'm like, like, I have the screenshot of my chart of what's powerful against what that I have open with me. And again, like, I think that's, you asked about, you know, if getting into this, I understand more of the,

it's this, you know what I mean? And it was the weird excitement in me of, okay, cool. Like, the photo I use is from Ben's Pokemon magazine. You know what I mean? That I picked up at the jewel, I know, the supermarket. And so, like, the excitement of I'm getting ready to do this important thing. So I open up the magazine and I have it in front of me to be able to look at the types and stuff. And like, and I, a shout out to Ignacio Rojas, of course, kind of funny best friend.

I talked about one of the apps I was using for a polka decks. He's like, no, no, no, get this one. And if you want to, you can pay, you know, six bucks or whatever for no ads. Like, I'll do that. Pay the six bucks because it's such a good app. I should give it a shout out. But it's like I have my little magazine out. I have this thing out.

And I'm talking about Master Dex. That's the one I use. I have this out. I'm looking at it. Like, that's all new to me in terms of this game. And so I think we always talk about like how, oh, man, jaded people are. How, you know, Tim knows them inside and out. what he's seen, what he hasn't.

Like, and I'm also playing the Switch 2 edition, which solves all the issues that I didn't really, I mean, I touched Switch 1 for 10 hours, so I saw it ran poorly and all that jazz. I'm not trying to do it. But like talking about Switch 2, talking about all the DLC,

talking about what it is, like my head wants to try to put it into the 8th, my heart wants to give it a 9. Like, but again, like, am I talking about the time I'm having? Like, I think that's what's the dissertation that would be from me in the college class of just like, no doubt. I've had an amazing time with this game.

But mechanically, graphically, no VO, audio. Like, that means, to me as a critic, means it can't be a nine game. That means it's,

I think it's an eight, probably. It's an eight. It's right there where it's like, I'm playing it sometimes and I'm like, why am I so fucking addicted to this? Why am I so into catching these guys?

Why fighting this thing and doing, and I driving your bike around and being this awkward animation of jumping in and that. It's like, there's all that real stuff going on. that's that I think I'm saying is an eight it's a it's a great game but then there's the fucking magic of Pokemon that takes it so far above that in terms of the time

you're having if that makes sense I mean dude last night I was the last couple days playing through the the second DLC because I really just kind of started it up I got to the point where you're you're in the terrarium and you're allowed to go face off against the four of the four of the section and the last couple days doing all four of those I was kind of not into it. It was just like, I'm just going through the motions.

Like I know what I'm doing here. Like I just kind of clicking A a lot, right? Yeah. But then by the time you start getting to the battles, I just found myself like, oh my God, I love this so much. Like it's like it's like it's like, I really feel like it takes a couple of your Pokemon fainting where you're like, oh shit. I got to pay attention.

I got to pay attention. And you have to pay attention. It's really good. Yeah. And that's the one criticism I would have, right? Of like, we're talking about the ZLCs and how good they are. I can talk about, you know, the end. of the violet in general going into the crater and all that jazz.

But I would say so many of those hours, I wasn't, I didn't have to pay attention. It was just mash a look. And I like it of the what's super effective, whatever, do that, blah, blah, blah. But again, there's a magic to this entire thing. Saying trance, I think is the best way to put it. Where, yeah, I will be in a trance playing this game. And it is that I, you know, I don't think until the next one comes around, I'll ever get it off my switch because it will be, let's just go catch some stuff.

Let's go. What can I do? Are you trying to catch them all? Is that interesting? No, it is interesting. It's very, very interesting. And if we didn't have this job, I'd be all about it. Because, you know, like, foolishly when I was leaving, I was like, I'd love to come back for this games cast and have it.

Not only beat, all the DLCs beat and have caught them all, but then Ben fell in love with it. And then it was a family vacation. So it wasn't like I was grinding on it on stop. And now that I'm back, right? It was Metal Gear. It's redacted. As soon as that's done, it's redacted two. Redacted three's on the horizon.

Like, there's so many things to do here that I'm not going to actually get back to I probably won't get back to do more violent stuff until way after we either review or just play Legends, where it'll be like, well, that's going to, I bet the way it'll all shake out that way down there. But I can't tell you what a great time I've had with it, how much I love this IP now, and how much I'm enjoying being a part of that. And again, like, I think I'm so spoiled being a dad where, you know, Ben came out and was like super into Ghostbusters. Yeah, you know what I mean? Superman.

Yeah. Like, there was a moment, like, you know, Jen grew up a Pokemon fan. And like when we put on the episode, she's like, oh, this is a great one. She's talking to me the way I talked to her about Ghostbusters or a wrestling match or whatever, you know what I mean? And so there was that thing where I turned to her one day where he was like,

this is Jen being as a mom being an expert in something Ben loves. Because we will just be driving the car and he's looking at the window. Mom, what's strong against rock type? You know what I mean? He's just thinking about Pokemon and Jen has the answer in a way that I'd be like, let me look at my chart. Jen knows it, right? And it's like, I turned her one day after some question or whatever.

he was doing or what he's playing. He just got his Pokemon Crocs yesterday. Big day. I was just like, so are you just loving this? You know what I mean? You finally get this where he's into something that means so much to you. Right. And she had a beautiful answer about it. But it's a very cool time right now in the Miller household. I love it. Yeah. I got the best case scenario. Yeah. I know. I'm excited to like, you know, when I think about my Pokemon upbringing, right? Like I don't think I played Pokemon Blue or like a Pokemon mainline game until like my fourth or fifth Pokemon thing. It went from the show to the cards to Pokemon Stadium to then. I think I got Pokemon Blue and started playing that all my cousins Game Boy until I got it, right?

And like, you know, between now and whatever the next generation of Pokemon is, let's say Gen 10 is, you know, November 2026. I wonder how many different things are going to be out by then, right? Of like if there's a new Pokemon pinball game or if there's like a new like, there's so many different ways to get into it. And I'm excited to see like how that forms his experience. He cherishes the cards that one package. he has he put they gave us uh sleeves we got like a polkaer package and they gave us sleeves so he's got them all in his sleeves and he'll just sit on the couch and go through him and put him down i love that tim before we get too far off what would you score Pokemon right now in the year of our

lord 2025 god if it's hard for you to answer it's even harder for me to answer yeah because i when i reviewed it on the old scale we had i'm pretty sure i gave it a four out of five that we love like a five out of five yeah i think that was like the origin of us saying all of that um yeah i i i would give it, I'd give it an aid. It's, it's great. I think especially the Switch 2 version. Um, it's a, the game's ugliest sin. Um, and I've no performance updates can change that. But, uh, there's a novelty to it. I said this back then. I still feel it now playing the DLC2. Like, it reminds me of Mario 64 in all the right ways where just moving around is fun and getting places is fun. And I like how you can climb anything. They can go anywhere. Like they give you tools to do all that. It's very different than

some of the other games. And I can even argue it's a 7.5 just because of the amount of things of the core game that I actually don't like. Like the team star stuff is, I'd say a downside to it all. Terrestrializing is maybe my least favorite of the gimmicks that they've ever had. I'm still not sure exactly what it does. I mean,

grant I'm hours in, but I'm like, when I don't terrestrial size and they hit me, it's not like I'm immediately dead. So it's like, is it making you super vulnerable? It changes their type and like you get different. different stab the same type same type attack bonus it's always just the most boring thing of like their last

Pokemon they're gonna use it on so the animation I'll leave it for my last Pokemon to get these dumb balloons on his head the raids really really really really really suck they're implemented horribly with the both the worst lag of all time and performance issues don't fix that it because it's internet based like a lot a lot of downsides to it from a core gameplay side I'm so happy mega evolutions of the focus coming back it's been way too long those are my favorite I think the coolest too so yeah a lot of a lot of downsides but I feel like the end of the game is so strong. Like the post elite

four stuff is the area zero stuff is so special and cool. And so much of what they did, like even just the way that the Pokemon center and the Pokemon art and the TM making thing all being just one station that you can find in each town. So much about this game that I love.

But God, I really can't wait to see what this game looks like. A couple iterations from now, a couple generations. Because Pokemon still feels like they're designing games for handheld consoles only like they used to on the Game Boy and it's like no man we're competing with the big dogs let's get the phone fantasy seven rebirth team on a Pokemon game you know what I mean let's just do it yeah let's just do it it is kind of crazy though like you know Pokemon is so one of a kind and I think there is an inherent uh quality to it to or even though they put out a game that feels messy feels like it has you know Tim can go off and talk about

like the list of things that could be better there's still nobody else that can make a Pokemon game that hits like Pokemon which is in the insane to me, right? And like, there's so much that goes into that, obviously, right? But like, you know, we talk about the clones. We talk about whether it's a power world or I think there was one called Coromond. That was like an indie one that I played a little bit of. And like, that game was cool. It was quality, right? But I think there's something to be said about what Pokemon, the Pokemon company and Game Freak are able to pull off with just the inherent, damn, this shit is just fun to play. There's a gameplay loop here. There is a, there is a design

aspect here that just makes it hit that nobody else is able to replicate. this level. And there's something that you, it's really hard to put into words that make sense to people that don't have the nostalgia for any of this. But I will never forget seeing an umbrion in the wild

in Scarlet and Violet. Or Poriagon or like these Pokemon that used to be like hard to get. Like oh, you need to make the choice for your Evie of what you're evolving it to. You need to trade friends to get the different forms like all that.

This, them just in the wild, a wild dragonite? Are you fucking kidding me? It's just a cat to, right? like that stuff is so cool to me yeah six-year-old well again like you know the layers to it where like i just hadn't thought about Pokemon in a very specific in a specific way if that makes sense the game comes at me and i get the team and i assemble it and so one day early on when we were playing ben was like do you have a Pikachu and then we look through all the box and I'm like oh no i don't have a

piccichu he's like can we get one i'm like sure and i google it and it's like oh oh hold not bad i got to eat an avocado sandwich and i got to go over here sandwiches they suck too they suck but It was like a nice wrinkle of like, oh, there's some shit you got to pull to get the thing you want if it's a special thing. Yeah. Let's see how much you like it when you catch every goddamn one of these fuckers. I have the whole polkodex in Scarlet and Violet, the whole polka decks in DLC 1, halfway through DLC 2. And I'm back blessed. You're bad man.

You're got to finish it. God, got to finish it. God. Got to catch them all of this. I know we're a little long here, but we have a lot of super chast that I want to get to here. Praise great. Joshel Mitchell says, what new megas or even regular slash regional evolution? Are you hoping to see I want to see him spread the love I would love to see all of the starter Pokemon get a mega evolution form for their

Third stage I think we're almost there at this point, but might as well round it all out You guys have any answers? No, I don't sorry. I mean I got Halucha I'm new to this region, right? Like I didn't I haven't played Pokemon X and Y so mega evolutions are a new thing for me So I'm excited to see the ones that are in here already like the victory bell thing is such sick oh shit. But honestly, I kind of won't I see Weiner says Tim should never tell Greg about his nightmares. He'll turn them into his reality. Yeah, I know. That's just the life that I live.

Alexander says, KF should do a Pokemon game stream, winner reviews. ZA. Yeah, that's the thing is like, I, I don't have a team, despite it being like, every game, I just have a different team, you know? I kind of like just jump into it. And I would like, with Pokemon champions coming out, like, I am more interested than ever in taking it seriously and I'm trying to come up with. These are my six.

Okay. Flying Penguin says Greg may have only played 20 minutes, but it was two vertical slices. If I'm correct, let's have Greg play the first hour and see what he thinks. Nintendo. Can't do that. Can't do just the first hour.

Juno says three weeks early birthday tax because I'll be without service in the wilderness. But Greg, please tell me Z.A. is an $80. Happy early birthday. birthday there. Be careful in the wilderness, and I'm pretty sure it's 70. I was going to say they did put out a thing for it. King Vin says, I spent all my coin on the, yeah, I spent all my coin on this super chat. I can't afford to Switch 2, but I'm not sure if it's worth buying one just yet.

Do you think Zah would be drastically worse than an experience on Switch 1? Yes. If Nintendo's showing you anything and the Pokemon company is showing you anything, yes. Yes, yes. Yelcing says, uh, quack, Coval, like Carnival, like Carnival, from Brazil. That makes sense. Paco ball.

We hit the Google thing. That's all I was going for. Leprecut says a Persian in the end game. That's crazy, Greg. Yeah, exactly. And then Andrew Brown says, Inciner is one of the greatest VG Simons ever. Yeah, that's the other thing.

Like Incenor is super OPE, super. It's like bayonetta and smash. When everyone's just like, it's so overused. Street Shadow says, great reviewing this is the best. That perspective of a dad who sees the joy in the face of their kid, seeing the joy of the kid, really changed how I judged tons of media like movies, games, and shows.

And then, uh, street, Street Shatter also says, uh, what's your favorite Pokemon game moment? Mine's the end of silver slash soul silver and the final battle plus getting my shiny umbri on. I mean, yeah, you took it. That is the greatest moment ever. Yeah. That might be the greatest moment of my life.

I got married. Some great stuff's happened to me. Yeah. But the end of fucking silver. That's what really was at. Yeah. Uh, I'll say finding me to you for the first time. Oh, my blue.

Big one. Yeah. Yeah. God. And then Jay Baseball says, well, Greg play Coliseum when it comes to Nintendo Switch online. I don't know what Coliseum is. Coliseum was the first GameCube Pokemon game. It was essentially a sequel to Stadium. So it's mainly focused on the battling and using your Game Boy Pokemon on TV.

But there was also a full RPG campaign that was different, way more adults. And there wasn't Jim Battles and things like that. Interesting. And your starter Pokemon, you had Espion and Umbrian, which is cool. shit. Okay. But I don't know that it'd be your vibe. Yeah, I doubt it. I doubt it. But I loved it back in the day. Um, and that's it for

the super chats. Thank you so much for that. Greg, any closing words on your new. I'm so excited to be excited about Pokemon. I'm really looking forward to Z day. See what that's all about. I'm looking forward to it. It is that thing where playing Z day was fun. This is different. It's cool. But it was like, well, I'm going to be more excited for Gen 10 for sure. Yeah. Hell yeah. Hell yeah. What a time.

Thank you for hanging out with us. We're about to do Prey in Review, continuing Alien versus Predator in Review. It's going to be a good time. Until next time, I love you all. Goodbye.